Archive for August, 2017|Monthly archive page

Looks like PM didn’t know about the “Voice” controversy where only “Mandarin speakers” could take part http://www.asiaone.com/singapore/sorry-only-mandarin-speakers-can-take-part-voice-singapore

While they can be of any race or nationality, aspiring contestants must be “fluent in Mandarin, and are able to perform Mandarin songs”, according to the contest’s website.

The condition has drawn outrage from netizens, who questioned the language criteria, as songs chosen for the audition are permitted to be “of any language (except for Dialects such as Cantonese or Hokkien)”.

People KPKBed that

the language restrictions were a manifestation of racial discrimination. While some non-Chinese Singaporeans might be able to speak Mandarin, it is only a small minority with “privilege” who are able to do so, pointed out Twitter user @wtfisnsx.

For those who dont understand why it’s a bad call to reserve the presidential race for Malays, let me bring you back to a similar incident.

Remember when ‘The Voice’ came to Singapore but was looking only for Chinese singers to participate in its competition? Many were livid. For what? For the same reason why people are sickened when the presidential election exclude certain community from contesting.

That’s what this presidential system has created. Unhappiness among the people.

If for such an inconsequential singing competition can make us feel upset because we are excluded from participating it, the presidential election is on a national scale and such policies from the government creates ill-will between the community.

Let me take you further to an environment where you can resonate better.

Supposed the principal of the school where you send your children to study, decides to bar your child from participating in the school 100m race as he wanted a particular person to win it. What would you have done?

Your answer to the above will guide you to what you would do today and understand why such policies are destructive and we have to move away from it.

Here’s something that came across my FB wall. MTI data shows that growth averaged 10 % p.a. in the 70s, with manufacturing sector’s share of GDPgrew from 14 % in 1965 to 24 % by 1978.

Production work was boring but she stayed on because of her close friends in the line. Maryati worked at Rollei in the 1970s and then at Seagate in the 1990s (in the interim she took care of her children).

She became a ‘lead girl’ at Rollei in charge of about 15 operators, and was in fact selected for training in Germany but because she was pregnant she was unable to go.

Maryati’s husband Hassan was a security guard at Rollei from the beginning in 1971 till the company shut down in 1982. They met at Rollei. To my surprise, Hassan had many interesting stories to tell of his time at Rollei.

Hassan became a delivery driver and then a taxi driver when Rollei closed. Maryati was retrenched when Seagate downsized and moved from Ang Mo Kio to Senoko.
It was really good to speak to Malay workers who played a part in Singapore’s industrialisation.

Maryati at her work: for the photos I am thankful Rollei made cameras and she had to test whether they worked!

Ravi was released on bail yesterday evening. His friends could not raise the bail amount ($20,000) on Friday and so he remained in jail until they raised the money.

His friend, Dominic Joseph Thomson, posted on FB very early this morning

Had a 2 hour talk with Ravi together with his sister, Violet and George. Ravi is back to his normal self. He understands what’s happened and is going to work hard to repair his reputation.

What he doesn’t need is to be bothered by people demanding he come online for their personal entertainment.

Those who have really have issues legally which he can assist in referring to vs competent lawyer are free to attend his office at People’s Park Centre during office hours.

You may contact him via FB messenger but I gather he won’t be responding to every message. The best is still to see him in person at his office.

He has several conditions in his bail so please refrain from visiting him at home unless he personally invites you.

He cannot use social media like before. I gather he plans to delete all his old videos too. Which is good.

Alternatively you can consult Violet to find out about him. But in both cases please respect their privacy. If they want to talk to you they will. If they don’t just let it be.

Let’s all wish Ravi well. And hope he continues taking his medicine. It was his refusal to take his medicine that caused him to go “maniac”. But don’t be too harsh on him for trying to avoid taking his medicine

Common side effects of these medicines include:

Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Trembling.

Increased thirst and increased need to urinate.

Weight gain in the first few months of use.

Drowsiness.

Above from Google

Bi-polar sufferers are told the benefits of the medicine are more important than any minor side effects.

Autism affects how a person perceives and relates to the world around them, but I don’t actually feel “disordered” as such. I think of it more as having a set of differences.

Basically, I was born with the social skills of a used teabag.

Over the years I’ve improved by carefully observing the humanoids in their natural habitat, mirroring other people and such, but I still have some social blind spots and I have a limited amount of social energy. Because of that, I experience high levels of social anxiety.

Like many women on the spectrum, I had a late diagnosis. I was 44 when my Asperger’s syndrome – a form of autism – was confirmed so for most of my life I had absolutely no idea why I found interacting with other people so problematic.

I think my defining characteristics growing up were probably my honesty and directness.

The coming presidential president must be a Malay declares the Constitution and the PAP administration.

But none of the three declared candidates has an i/c saying “Malay”. The PAP’s candidate and a candidate who speaks Malay badly both have i/cs saying “Indian” while the third person has one saying “Pakistani”. Even for me who knows about the thin culture line between Malays and some Indian Muslims* am shocked that there isn’t someone with an i/c saying “Malay” willing to stand. Don’t want to be regarded as selling out to the PAP isit? Or unlike “Indians” and “Pakistanis” feeling piseh to stand in a presidency reserved only for “Malays”.

A retired journalist (and one time strike leader), Yeo Toon Joo**, who knows his Chinese “history”, has on FB called what is happening as regards the presidency the S’pore version of “Calling a deer a horse” 指鹿為馬***.

Explanation from Wikipedia on the allusion

Zhao Gao was contemplating treason but was afraid the other officials would not heed his commands, so he decided to test them first. He brought a deer and presented it to the Second Emperor but called it a horse. The Second Emperor laughed and said, “Is the chancellor perhaps mistaken, calling a deer a horse?” Then the emperor questioned those around him. Some remained silent, while some, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Zhao Gao, said it was a horse, and others said it was a deer. Zhao Gao secretly arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law and had them executed instantly. Thereafter the officials were all terrified of Zhao Gao. Zhao Gao gained military power as a result of that. (tr. Watson 1993:70)

An alternative explaination is that Zhao Gao wanted to show the officials that the emperor was under his control. In this version, he had ensured that the emperor was well provided with drugs, women and alcohol so that the emperor was pliant to his wishes.

[T]his is what a very senior MFA official (Indian Muslim) said to me (and others) in the early 80s: “How do I answer my young daughter when she asks me why she’s Indian but her cousin’s Malay?”. He was always grousing that being classified as Indian hurt his career (he could have been a minister) because of the “quota” system for Indians and Malays. He had to compete with clever Hindus and not Malays.

**He’s also published “Confessions of Lee Kuan Yew’s Simplistic Pressman” More at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/book-publisher-touch-toon-joo-peter-yeo. Btw, he’s based in Canada now though he comes back regularly. For one thing, he prefers our hospitals.

Update at 7-00am on 29 August: ST reports that MoE says this is “fake news”. What do u think?

Before over 1500 delegates, Director General of the Ministry of Education, Mr Wong Siew Hoong, projected graphs depicting Singapore’s stellar PISA results. He then juxtaposed these to OECD data on student wellbeing, and also of innovation in the economy, revealing Singapore in the lowest quartile. His conclusion was stark: “we’ve been winning the wrong race”.

I shall be organising an event at Speakers’ Corner in the 2nd week of September under the aegis of my Movement – Project Freedom , with the theme of ” Fair Jobs for Singaporeans ! ” .

We will not be discussing diabetes , pre-school or smart nation at the event but on the critical topic of what our Government should be doing to protect the rights of Singaporeans to find good jobs in their homeland !

Singaporeans are finding it increasingly difficult to get jobs whether you are a fresh graduate or a PMET who has been displaced by a foreign worker . The landscape for jobs in Singapore gets bleaker by the day . Our government has done little to prepare our workers for the revolution that is about to engulf the world as a result of automation .

I am crowdfunding for $ 20 000 to organise the event . A breakdown of the estimated itemised cost is as follows :-

1.Stage and tentage2.Sound system3.Barricades4. Security personnel

Please support generously by donating to the following account ;

POSB Savings Account No : 404-14132-5

I call on 16 800 Singaporeans ( so far $ 3200 has been raised ) to please help give $ 1 each ( and in the process show the displeasure of the neglect of the government in this area ) and to share this meaningful event with your friends .

I look forward to seeing you at Hong Lim Park !

Good way to test whether there are S’poreans out there willing to walk the talk by donating and in the process show the displeasure of the neglect of the government in Fair Jobs for Singaporeans.

Money talks, BS walks.

If the crowdfunding response is lousy, time for him to move on: out of politics. S’poreans are not interested in Fair Jobs for Singaporeans nor in showing their displeasure of the neglect of the government in not providing Fair Jobs for Singaporeans.

Glad he knows that it’s a waste of time if the only supporters he can attract are the cheapskate cybernut fans of TRE and TOC who suck TeamTRE and Terry dry with their demands of free anti-PAP opiates.

Btw, I’ll write a cheque for a token donation and deposit it into the account tomorrow.

1. Between now and 2030, Singapore will witness an unprecedented
profound age shift. The number of residents aged 65 years or older will
multiply threefold from current 300,000 to 900,000 in 2030. By then, one
out of every five residents will be a senior.

2. The coming surge of seniors, which starts when the first batch of baby
boomers reach 65 years of age in 2012, will have tremendous effect on all
parts of our society – individuals, families, communities, businesses and
Government.

Executive SummaryCommittee on Ageing Issues: Report on the Ageing Population

So it was surprising that in his NatDay Rally speech PM didn’t focus on the needs of the elderly (I have no problems with his focus on diabetes and kids’ education or the micro aspects of life here.) instead of talking about a cashless payments system.

Given the above statistics and talk of Smart nation, I tot care for the elderly would have been more relevant than payments system.

Technology holds great promise to make life better for the elderly, enabling them to retain their independence and live full lives for longer. Equally important, it can lend a helping hand to those who care for them and provide peace of mind. And it should be good for health and care funders because it helps prevent expensive spells in hospitals and care homes. The difficulty lies in deciding who pays.

a set of eight sensors from Sensara, a tech company, have transformed the 87-year-old’s home into a cyber-castle. His children, all in their 50s, keep an eye on when he gets out of bed, goes to the toilet, has a meal or leaves the house, using an app that pings them if anything is wrong. “They’re always watching me,” jokes Mr Honée, but he feels safer, he says “without feeling spied on as with cameras.”

Juz wondering maybe PM forgot about the Committee on Ageing Issues: Report on the Ageing Population. After all it was written in 2006, a geological age ago politically. “A week is a long time in politics” especially when the MRT system keeps breaking down almost every other day. A system, incidentally, where the presumptive Malay president (even if her i/c says she’s Indian) oversaw, along with others, when a non-ex SMRT director between 2007 -2011.

Our very own Terrexgate and the return of “cracked” PRC trains to China were first reported by Factwire, not by TMG or mothership, the alternative media publishers that have sugar daddies. Terry’s Online Channel does what it can with some help from progressives. But the vast majority of its readers believe in free lunches.

Chris K today made a comment on FB, “how the heck can one carry on if out of employment outside of monetizing HDB flats”.

There’s a retired (honourably) social activist working in Airbnb’s Asian operations (Got to pay mortgage and cat food bills) who should get Airbnb to lobby the govt to change the rules on short term leases (Now illegal for HDB flats and the govt’s view is that it’s illegal for private housing though the govt’s case for said illegality is convoluted.). Speaking about Western socities

In the meantime, entrepreneurial empty-nesters have found another way to sweat their assets: Airbnb. The over-60s are the fastest-growing group of hosts on the home-sharing site and receive the highest ratings. Almost half of older hosts in Europe say the additional income helps them stay in their home.

By the early 2000s the state of health of American men aged 69, as reported by themselves, was as good as that of 60-year-olds in the 1970s; 70 really does seem to be the new 60.

Economist

So if liddat can work until 75 meh?

So if the PAP wants to raise the age when we can get our CPF annuities, it can quote the BBC and the Economist, its bible of Hard Truths for intellectual support.

In 1948 the average 65-year-old could expect to live 13.5 years.

People retiring now can expect to live much longer – 22.8 years.

If the trend continues as expected, today’s young people can expect to live into their early nineties.

Imagine the amount of money you spend on a pension is a pot of jam. Either you spread it far more thinly in future over more years – meaning a lower annual pension – or you are going to need a much bigger pot.

BBC

And

The Oxford English dictionary defines “old” as “having lived for a long time”. It illustrates the sense with an accompanying phrase, “the old man lay propped up on cushions”: the old person as one who has made all the useful contributions he can possibly make to society and is now at rest. When pensions were first introduced in Prussia, in the 1880s, this was probably a fair characterisation for anyone over 65. Not many people lived beyond this age; those who did were rarely in good health. But today many 65-year-olds are healthy and active. Donald Trump (71) may be many things, but old he is not, nor for that matter is Vladimir Putin (64), who qualifies for his bus pass in October. Yet governments and employers still treat 65 as a cliff’s edge beyond which people can be regarded as “old”: inactive, and an economic burden.

This is wrong, for three reasons. First, what “old” means is relative. Life expectancy has gone through the roof since Otto von Bismarck pioneered the Prussian welfare state. Today the average 65-year-old German can expect to live another 20 years. So can most people in other rich countries, meaning old age now arguably kicks in later than before. Second, the term carries an underlying implication about health, or at least fitness. But healthy-life expectancy has grown roughly in tandem with life expectancy; for many, 70 really is the new 60. Third, surveys show that the majority of younger over-65-year-olds increasingly want to stay actively involved in their communities and economies. Few want to retire in the literal sense of the word, which implies withdrawing from society as a whole. Many want to continue working but on different terms than before, asking for more flexibility and fewer hours.

Yesterday, I posted a short piece on accountability in a meritocracy PM, this is accountabilityand alluded to SMRT as its anthesis.

Here’s more on SMRT (and MRT) from an expert. Forget all the smoke about the need for new sleepers, initially, and now, new signaling eqpt as the cause of disruptions.

The efficiency of the system led to overconfidence, said Lock Kai Sang, engineering professor at the Singapore Institute of Technology and a former member of an Independent Advisory Panel appointed by the Land Transport Authority to assess the rail system’s power supply.

“At a certain point, there wasn’t sufficient attention being paid to the maintenance,” he said. “They were too confident at one point.”

The good news according Mr Lock is that “the government and rail operators are putting in a lot of effort to install systems that allow predictive maintenance, designed to stop problems before they occur.”

Granted but if we were a truly meritocratic and accountable society, the systems should have been in place to help prevent problems before they occur i.e. predictive maintenance should have been in-built into the system. SIA doesn’t fly its planes until they crash.

M Ravi has recovered from his episode. And back to his normal self. Will be bailed out on Friday.

Dominic Joseph Thomson posted this on his FB wall on the night of 20th August. He’s Ravi’s friend and tried to help him cope.

What he doesn’t say is that Ravi has recovered because in Woodbridge he has to take his medicine. Refusal is not an option. When he was free, he boasted that he wasn’t taking his medicine and his friends could only wring their hands in despair, while the trolls cheered Ravi on.

Once out, his mental health depends on whether the terms of his bail require him to take his medicine under supervision. If it does, that’s good news. If not, the maniac cycle will repeat itself.

DBS Bank will be investing more than S$20 million over the next five years in a programme that will train its 10,000 employees in Singapore in digital banking skills and technologies.

The move is in support of Singapore’s vision to be a Smart Nation which Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong highlighted during his National Day Rally speech, it said in a press release on Monday (Aug 21)*.

Break down the $20m to a yearly figure ($4m) and divide the $4m by the number of employees (10,000), and u get $400 per employee a year. Peanuts.

What training for digital banking skills and technologies can one get for $400 per employee per year?

Training? What training? Support? What support? It seems to be more about carrying the PM’s balls, than anything else.

No wonder we not that Smart a nation.

——————-

*The article goes on: The broad-based programme will include artificial intelligence (AI)-powered e-learning. AI can make personalised course recommendations for employees and help them to collaborate and engage in mobile education at any time or place across the bank, it said.

Employees can also try experiential learning, where they will be able to go on paid sabbaticals to work on prototypes and start their own businesses. Accelerator programmes will provide mentorship and funds for intrapreneurs.

Staff can likewise apply for grants and scholarships to upskill themselves in emerging technologies like data and analytics, desiging thinking and automation, the bank said. Innovative learning spaces, like the DBS Academy and DBS Asia X, are also part of the programme, where employees have access to digital master classes, or work in collaboration with start-ups and the broader fintech community.

Can’t stop laughing that this fan of Hilary Clinton and hater of The Donald (he returns the hate) has only just discovered the existence of big Chinese internet firms.

From NYT Dealbook

The new Silicon Valley may be in China.

America’s technology giants have new neighbors as the Chinese companies Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings have quickly become darlings of global investors by dominating their home market.

Alibaba and Tencent are among the world’s most highly valued public companies, with market capitalizations twice as big as the longtime tech leaders Intel, Cisco and IBM.

They have joined an elite club of tech companies worth $400 billion and up that has been dominated by American businesses: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft.

“We’ve come to the point where China has finally caught up with the U.S. in the internet space,” said Hans Tung, a managing partner at the venture capital firm GGV Capital.

Alibaba and Tencent have grown to prominence by dominating e-commerce and online life in China, the world’s largest internet market. Their growth has come as Western companies, such as Facebook, have been blocked by the country’s tight internet controls.

This week, Alibaba and Tencent reported financial results that were well ahead of analysts’ expectations and point to the growing influence of technology on the Chinese economy.

Tencent is expected to soon become the only company other than Facebook to have a social network with more than a billion users, while Alibaba has more than 500 million monthly active users for its online shopping apps. The Chinese companies’ revenue also grew at a faster pace in the past three months than at Facebook and Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

Going by his comments on eating wholemeal bread rather than white bread PM doesn’t know

==============

At some point around 1789, when being told that her French subjects had no bread, Marie-Antoinette (bride of France’s King Louis XVI) supposedly sniffed, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”—“Let them eat cake.”

=====================

that wholemeal bread is more expensive than white bread. A lot more expensive

The price of a slice of a loaf of white bread (economy) from Giant is 7 cents. The slice of Giant’s wholemeal bread (economy) is 10 cents. When I last bought FairPrice’s bread, the price difference was also about 43%.

Taz a big difference.

Well if I earned millions like PM, I too would only eat wholemeal bread, not white bread. Or rather if I earned millions, like PM, I’d be always eating multi-grain bread or rye bread as a matter of course. Wholemeal bread is the cheapest of “good” bread. And really the really rich shouldn’t be crowding out the poor by buying cheap good bread,

But as a retiree I have to watch my pennies. As a slice of wholemeal bread is 43% more expensive than a slice of white bread for every two slices of white bread, I take one slice of wholemeal bread. Mix and match.

Seriously, PM is seriously out-of-touch about why S’poreans eat what they eat. It often depends on what’s affordable, not what is good for health.

Reading this where a grandson of LKY KPKBs about draconian detention laws that Harry passed because they could have been used against him (Btw, he never said anything about Ah Kong’s role in those laws), I couldn’t help but think of several Old Testament verses especially since Harry often came across as an intolerant Old Testament prophet serving an equal intolerant God of Hard Truths.

— “The Lord … visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

— “Because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.”

And the Old Testament gave a really good example of this curse (OK retribution) in action. King David arranged the murder of a man so that he could marry his wife. Their son became King Solomon after a few personal tragedies for David .

There was the rape of David’s daughter by his eldest son and heir, Ammon, and Ammon’s murder by another of David’s sons:

The first recorded event defining Absalom’s life also involved his sister Tamar and half-brother Amnon. Tamar was beautiful, and Amnon lusted after her. When Tamar rebuffed Amnon’s advances, he arranged, through subterfuge, to have her come to his house, where he raped her. After the rape, Amnon put Tamar out of his house in disgrace. When Absalom heard what happened, he took his sister in to live with him. For the next two years, Absalom nursed a hatred of his half-brother. Then, using some subterfuge of his own, Absalom invited Amnon to his house for a party. During the festivities, in the presence of David’s other sons, Absalom had his servants kill Amnon in cold blood.

Out of fear of his father, Absalom ran away to Geshur, where he stayed for three years … David’s general,Joab, was ultimately responsible for bringing Absalom back to Jerusalem. However, even then, Absalom was not permitted to enter David’s presence, but had to live in a house of his own. He lived this way, presumably never contacting or being contacted by his father, for two years. Finally, once again by way of Joab’s intercession, the two men get back together, and there is a small measure of reconciliation.

More on this madman Gilbert Louis and his utter stupidity. Poison food, ISD plot. Even denying his violent assault on a poor defenceless woman. I nearly fell off my chair laughing at his post. He should be locked up in IMH. Here’s his crazy insanity driven post for posterity:

ALTHOUGH HE HAS ON OCCASION EXHIBITED STRANGE ANTICS M RAVI IS NOT KNOWN TO BE A VIOLENT PERSON. HE HAS ALWAYS REPRESENTED HIS CLIENTS TO THE BEST OF HIS ABILITIES.

HIS BEHAVIOUR RECENTLY CAN ONLY BE FROM SOMEONE TAINTING HIS FOOD AND DRINKS. SOMEONE THAT IS CLOSE TO HIM AND OFTEN EATS AND DRINKS WITH HIM.

THAT SOMEONE IS DOMINIC JOSEPH THOMSON WHO IS NOW ATTACKING ME ON HIS TIMELINE. HE HAS BLOCKED ME SO THAT I AM UNABLE TO REPLY TO HIS FRIVOLOUS ACCUSATIONS.

MY SUSPICIONS ARE NOW CONFIRMED. THE ISD HAVE MANY WAYS TO DISCREDIT AN OPPONENT AND THEY HAVE RUTHLESSLY POISONED RAVI AS THEY DID TO ME DURING MY INCARCERATION.

PLEASE HAVE FAITH IN RAVI. HIS RECENT ACTIONS ARE NOT A TRUE REPRESENTATION OF HIMSELF. HIS CLOSE FRIENDS ARE PERPLEXED BY HIS CONFRONTATIONAL ATTITUDE.

Yes, if u go read Gilbert Louis’s FB wall, he really did make such accusations.

And Gilbert Louis has a criminal record for assaulting his wife’s lawyer. His wife wanted a divorce but he claimed that the lawyer instigated the divorce. He was jailed for six years.

The “predominant epicenter of high-tech design and manufacturing in the world” is Shenzhen http://www.bbc.com/capital/gallery/20170809-inside-chinas-skyscraper-capital Shenzhen shows how a high-tech hub can develop without master plans or MNCs . It was a low-cost manufacturing centre for HK businesses that juz kept on moving up market without master plans being drawn up by bureaucrats. Granted its economic zone status was granted by fiat but then HK and S’pore were similarly kick started.

Shenzhen has risen to become the predominant epicenter of high-tech design and manufacturing in the world. Variously called the “world’s factory,” “the new Silicon Valley,” and the “maker’s dream city,” Shenzhen has a complete ecosystem that contains everything needed for all stages of electronics production all in one place. This has turned the city into a staging ground for large high-tech companies, rising startups, and independent innovators from all over the world looking to get their stuff made as efficiently as possible. Tech giants like Huawei, ZTE , and Tencent all got their starts here, and many more companies seem to be on the way up.

And Shenzhen’s growth has benefited HK which despite its political problems outperforms S’pore. Once Shenzhen provided HK manufacturers with low-cost facilities, now Shenzhen’s manufacturers use HK to provide services like finance, insurance etc.

FT reported on Friday that on Thursday, KKR, the giant US buyout firm, and GIC were reportedly coming together to pursue a £6bn bid for Unilever’s spreads business which includes brands such as Flora and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. “KKR and Unilever declined to comment. GIC didn’t respond to a request for comment.”

Unilever wants to sell its spread business to focus on foods products with better margins.

Other private equity groups are planning to bid but I’m sure that TRE cybernuts will say that this is another bad move.

Then there’s a deal involving Jack Ma.

Yunfeng Financial Group backed by Alibaba billionaire Jack Ma (via Ant group), agreed to buy the Asian unit of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co which offers death benefits and annuities.

The buyer will pay HK$13 billion (US$1.7 billion) for Hong Kong-based MassMutual Asia Ltd, with about 60 per cent of that sum in cash, and the rest in Yunfeng stock, the seller said on Thursday in a statement. GIC and Ma’s Ant group are also buying into the deal.

Seriously shouldn’t these tests be done at military installations or public transport depots or MRT stations or the airport? Anywhere but the the home of the really rich locals and FTs. Remember FTs can buy freehold land there without permission.

Further to this about Hali’s judgment as SMRT non-executive director in not being aware of MRT problems that ordinary S’poreans were aware of, there’s more about her judgement (or rather lack of it) during her spell as SMRT director and a senior NTUC leader.

I wrote this in 2012 about Ong Ye Kung, but it applies to Halimah too given that labour problems don’t just happen overnight. They fester over time. And she should have known about the labour tensions in SMRT given that she was Deputy Secretary General, Director of the Legal Services Department and Director of the Women’s Development Secretariat.

Earlier this year, SMRT’s S’porean drivers made known publicly their unhappiness over pay proposals that had his endorsement as Executive Secretary of NTWU (Nation Transport Workers’ Union). As he was also a non-executive director of SMRT, if he were an investment banker, a US judge would have rebuked and censured him for his multiple, conflicting roles.

Then he resigned, effective last month, from NTUC to “join the private sector”.

In perhaps a farewell, good-riddance gesture, FT PRC workers went on strike (illegally) and we learnt:

— they lived in sub-standard accommodation (SMRT admitted this);

— unlike most SBS FT PRC drivers, most of SMRT’s PRC drivers were not union members; and

— Ministry of Manpower reprimanded SMRT for its HR practices.

All this reflects badly on Ong: NTUC’s Deputy Secretary-General, Executive-Secretary of NTWU and SMRT non-executive director. And on the system that allowed him to rise to the top. After all his ex-boss said the following reported on Friday, which given Ong’s multiple roles in SMRT, can reasonably be interpreted as criticism of Ong:

In his first comments on the illegal strike, which saw 171 workers protesting over salary increases and living conditions, the Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) said the labour dispute “shouldn’t have happened” and “could have been avoided”. [So where was Ong: looking at his monthly CPF statements and being happy?]

NTUC is thus reaching out to SMRT’s management to persuade them “to adopt a more enlightened approach to embrace the union as a partner”, he added. [Hello, NTUC’s Deputy Secretary-General was on SMRT’s board, so what waz he doing?]

Mr Lim, who was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Labour Movement Workplan Seminar, cited the example of SMRT’s rival SBS Transit where nine in 10 of its China bus drivers are union members. Only one in 10 of SMRT’s China bus drivers are union members, according to union sources. [So, why didn’t Ong advise SMRT to help unionise these FTs, and if he did, why didn’t NTUC push harder ehen SMRT refused?]

SBS Transit’s management “recognised the constructive role of the union”, while union leaders “played the role of looking after the interests of the drivers”, said Mr Lim.

“And as a result … they work very closely as one team, it’s a win-win outcome. In terms of how workers are being treated and respected, how management are responsive, how they work together, I think it’s a kind of model that we ought to see more and more in Singapore.” (Today)

Judgment? What judgment?

Coming back to Ong. Given he’s failed at NTUC as Zorro Lim implied above, he’s now said to be a possible PM?

And NTUC is not the only place he failed. He failed here too:

Ong was the Chief Executive of the Singapore Workforce Development Agency from 2005 to 2008. There, he spearheaded many initiatives to build up the Continuing Education and Training infrastructure for Singapore, and made training accessible to the individual worker, including contract workers and the unemployed.

Wikipedia entry

Surely he must share a lot of the blame for the low productivity of S’pore’s work force?

The latest Barcelona tragedy reminded me of a piece I wrote sometime back. Given the problems he’s having with the progressive US media and the sore losers who love Hilary,he can play to his base:”Keep America Safe. Ban Muslims from driving”. He can quote the examples in my piece to show that allowing Muslims to drive presents a clear and present danger to Americans.

The kind of jihadist attack in London that happened in London two days ago is called the “marauding” method of terror attack was similar to attacks carried out by Islamists last year in France and Germany. It involves using a vehicle to mow people down in a crowded area.

And the BBC reported on 23 March that a French national of North African origin has been arrested in the Belgian city of Antwerp on suspicion of driving at a crowd, officials say.

Seriously, since SAF is careful on where Muslims are deployed with the SAF, it follows that our bus operators and owners of trucks and other heavy eqpt should be careful about employing Muslims to drive these vehicles.

Of course people like Kirsten Han and other ang moh tua kees will scream discrimination but better safe than sorry. And anyway, the next president is going to be Muslim. So discrimination? What discrimination?

OK, OK, the next president will be a Malay because under our constitution there is no requirement a Malay must be Muslim (unlike in M’sia). Hey but none of the probable candidates are non-Muslim Malays. And anyway, whatever the con says, the Malay community sees Islam as the religion of the Malays.

–

Actually I can add to the last para that all the “Malays” who want to stand as president all have Indian blood. And only one has i/c saying “Malay” and he isn’t the chosen one. Her i/c says”Indian’.

The constructive, nation-building media repoeted that the presumptive Madam President said making a decision to unlock the nation’s reserves is not just based on numbers but involves exercising judgment gleaned from years of experience in policymaking. (Here’s what Chris K says about the lack of discretion that any president has.)

Well between 2007 and 2011, where was her judgement when she was a non-executive director of SMRT?

I mean it wasn’t only the cybernuts in TRELand who were pointing out the problems that SMRT was not owning up to such as overcrowding and a lack of maintenance. Luckily for the PAP and PM, it was only after GE and PE 2011 that the wheels came off the trains, the signal lights failed, and the power supply failed, something predicted by many S’poreans.

Where was her judgement then? Presumably that management not the users of the MRT system were correct that everything was fine?

The Philippine economy is one of the peppiest in South-East Asia. Last year it expanded by 6.8%, overtaking those of Singapore and Malaysia in size. The World Bank expects it to grow at a similar pace this year and next.

On a year on year measure, GDP rose 3.8 per cent – above a 3.3 per cent forecast – and a moderation from the 4.3 per cent year on year registered at the start of the year. The first quarter expansion was Hong Kong’s best since 2011.

FT

Now our constructive, nation-building media reports that for S’pore

the year-on-year growth number of 2.9 per cent for the second quarter could be the economy’s strongest showing this year, given MTI’s expectation for 2017 growth to come in at 2.5 per cent. This means that the economy will likely see an average growth of about 2.3 per cent of the second half of the year after having expanded 2.7 per cent over the first two quarters.

Btw, HK revised its full-year GDP forecast from a range of 2-3 per cent to 3-4 per cent in 2017. So 2.3% iGDP growth is “peanuts”.

While PM was bawling and brawling with his siblings in a muddy playpen and ensuring that we have a Malay president whose i/c says “Indian”, HK’s economy, despite all its internal political problems (shumething we don’t have since we are a defacto one party state under Lee) is powering ahead.

When talking on “Indian” is “Malay” I wrote something that helps explain, partially, why we are growing at only the average first world standard, not more, unlike HK:

Whatever, how can S’pore be creative, let alone progress if the ruling party in a defacto one-party state refuses to change its mind on policies that no longer work or never worked in the first place?

Take the economy where the PAP

— continues to see welfare** as a bad thing except when it needs to buy votes, and

Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back

Tomorrow, I’ll tell of an Asian city (not HK) that has no high-paid ministers or bureucrats mindlessly churning out restructuring master plans but which is a place that even Silicon Valley respects albeit grudgingly.

Something alternative media will not tell u about. To be fair neither will the subversives working in ST.

FT reported that filings showed Temasek sold Snap 300,000 shares valued at US$6.76m. This works out to US$22.33 a share. Snap sold shares at its initial public offering in March at $17 apiece and at that price was worth US$24bn. This was more than a pre-IPO valuation in the second half of 2016 of US$20bn, when it raised US$1.8bn in a Series F round.

Of course the amounts involved are “peanuts” but every little “peanut” counts.

The Mail …reports that the way to make wine taste better is to put a high price tag on it, after volunteers who tasted the same wine with different price labels said the one thought to be most expensive tasted the best.

This piece tries to explain why die die PAP must get the president PAP wants. And why even then there can be problems. Remember our first elected president?

A look at the relations between India’s ceremonial president (He is the head of the state, and is required by the constitution to act on the advice of ministers) and the governments of the day show how difficult it is to control a president who goes “rogue” ie refuses to act on the advice of ministers even when the constitution says he must.

Our president is more than a ceremonial figure. He is supposed to be a figurehead with some chief jaga duties primarily centred around protecting our reserves. It’s a mixture of ceremonial and custodial functions, thanks to one Harry Lee.

The ceremonial role aspect of our president, a figurehead, is based on the Indian model: he is the head of the state, and is required by the constitution to act on the advice of ministers.

An Indian president is supposedly

a mere figurehead who, in the words of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is a “head that neither reigns nor governs”, and holds a position of “authority or dignity” more than anything else?

In 1987, he withheld assent from a controversial bill passed by the parliament. (The bill was later withdrawn.) There were reports that Mr Singh, who died in 1994 , had even considered sacking Mr Gandhi’s government over an arms purchasing scandal.

The ninth incumbent Shankar Dayal Sharma returned two executive orders to the cabinet in 1996 because they had been “inappropriately” issued before a general election.

And his successor, KR Narayanan, a London School of Economics-educated former diplomat and Dalit (formerly known as “untouchable”), was arguably one of India’s most assertive presidents. He delivered speeches which many believed were not vetted by the government and, in a surprising break from protocol, even gave an interview to a senior journalist.

Mr Narayanan also sent back a proposal to impose direct rule in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh to the cabinet, asking the ministers to reconsider it. He bluntly said: “I am not a rubber stamp.”

And he angered many in the government and the media for chiding visiting US president Bill Clinton at a state banquet, provoking the New York Times to comment that “the tensions inherent in forging an Indian-American friendship surfaced with Mr Narayanan’s speech”.

Then there was the previous president

Prof Manor believes Mr Kovind’s predecessor, Pranab Mukherjee, a veteran Congress party leader and a former senior minister, was “more assertive than nearly all previous presidents”.

“Mr Mukherjee had the right to refer those cases back to ministers for reconsideration once, but when they reiterated the advice, he is required to accept it. He refused to do so,” explains Prof Manor.

“That was potentially explosive politically, and might have led to a constitutional crisis. But the prime minister and cabinet apparently decided not to make an issue of it – because Mr Mukherjee’s term was soon to end, and because a confrontation would have prevented them from doing other important things.”

So one can understand why the ruling party in a de facto one-party state wants to ensure that the presidency is held by someone who will not go “rogue”, especially given that the job has chief jaga duties. Remember Ong Teng Cheong?

Whatever, there’s something the PAP cannot avoid: a “rogue” president has the power to publicise via the alternative, new or social media his views when he rows with the PAP administration. So all the more important to make sure kaki lung gets in.

It lent him money when American banks refused to take his calls. But he then sued the bank: ungrateful.

From NYT Dealbook

By Amie Tsang

Few major financial institutions have been willing to lend to Donald J. Trump over the years. But during his victorious presidential campaign, he pointed to one that had done plenty of business with him: Deutsche Bank.

Now that relationship has come under scrutiny.

Regulators are reviewing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans made to Mr. Trump’s businesses through Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management unit, The New York Times reported, citing three people briefed on the review. The regulators are examining whether the loans might expose the banks to heightened risks.

New York regulators have paid particular attention to personal guarantees Mr. Trump made to obtain the loans.

There is no formal investigation of the bank, and personal guarantees are often required for big loans from wealth managers. The regulators are focused on whether these guarantees could create problems for Deutsche Bank should Mr. Trump fail to pay his debts, leaving it with a choice of suing him or risking being seen to have cut him a special deal. The concern is not hypothetical: Mr. Trump sued the bank to delay paying back an earlier loan.

Separately, Deutsche Bank has been in contact with federal investigators, and it is likely eventually to have to provide information on the Trump accounts to the special counsel in the Russia inquiry, Robert S. Mueller III.

Mr. Trump’s 20-year relationship with the bank is complicated, involving more than $4 billion in loan commitments and potential bond offerings, most of them completed. Despite the risks involved, working with Mr. Trump has made Deutsche Bank money, according to people with knowledge of the details.

It is more than 24 hours since my nephew posted that AGC was incorrect In claiming he did not reply in time and he had proof. AGC and the media was very quick to comment and report earlier on, but are strangely reluctant to correct their mistake.

She omits to tell us that even if he had replied in time, he did not do what AGC asked him to do to purge his contempt.

It demanded that he should delete the post and apologise by July 28th.

…

Mr Li asked to be allowed to consider the request until August 4th; on that day he tweaked his message, but neither removed it nor said sorry. The attorney-general’s office duly filed an application in the High Court to start proceedings against him.

What would pa and ma think of her misrepresentation of the facts?

Sad.

Btw, Teo Soh Lung, our very own Xena is silent on this and M Ravi’s case. Taking “I love S’pore (PAP version)” pills to celebrate National Day? She’s not KPKBing most probably because she’s mortified as the lady M Ravi is charged for hurting, is a good friend as is M Ravi. “Own friend hurt own friend”.

Supersizing that Big Mac order in China the Sun Tzu way: becoming great in China by reducing ownership of the Chinese biz:

On Tuesday, the $126 billion burger giant said it planned to open 2,000 mainland stores by 2022. That will nearly double its footprint from 2,500 outlets now. That target is up one-third from a previous goal of 1,500 restaurants in five years, a goal that also originally included Hong Kong.

This underlines how the $2.1 billion sale of McDonald’s China business, which was agreed in January and closed last week, was not really a retreat. It now holds one-fifth of the business, which has the rights to run McDonald’s operations in China for 20 years, with the rest owned by Chinese conglomerate CITIC, CITIC’s private equity arm, and U.S. buyout firm Carlyle.

M Ravi was remanded at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for two weeks on Saturday (Aug 12), after being charged over three incidents.

Ravi, 48, was charged on Saturday with two counts of causing public nuisance at Sri Mariamman Temple on Jul 31 and Aug 11 this year, one count of voluntarily causing hurt to lawyer Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss on Aug 8 and one count of causing hurt with a rash act to lawyer Nakoorsha Abdul Kadir on the same day.

A top grossing Chinese film Wolf Warrior 2 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40811952 has the tagline “whoever offends China will be hunted down wherever they are”. (Btw, showing here. And I heard Uncle RedBean, Goh Meng Seng and Huang Jing were seen in Red Army uniforms attending a screening.)

Now the report of surface to surface missles from China to be based in Johor:

China will offer Malaysia advanced rocket launchers and a radar system, to be based in Johor, reflecting the widening defence and trade ties between the two countries in the South China Sea region, The Malaysian Insight reported sources as saying on Wednesday (Aug 9).

made me think “Whoever offends China will have Chinese-made rockets aimed at it”.

S’pore has better and longer ranged rocket launchers from u know who. But if this sale goes thru (M’sia denies that it has been offered these rockets), juz like North Korean artillery can target Seoul and destroy it, the Third China can wipe out Raffles Place.

True our rockets can take out KL, but M’sia’s a big place, S’pore is a city that is a state.

By PETER S. GOODMAN

Long the ultimate safe haven in the global economy, the U.S. dollar may be losing some status as investors grapple with an uncertain political climate.

And

Financial markets are reaching new highs, and enthusiasm about the business environment appears to be strong: Does that have anything to do with President Trump?

The administration has been unable to pass any meaningful legislation on major campaign promises and its trade agenda has stalled, frustrating steelworkers and others in industries the president vowed to protect.

Mr. Trump’s supporters have pointed to the bevy of executive orders that he has signed and his efforts to roll back regulations.

America’s largest corporations, however, are not citing rollbacks as the reason for their improved results.

“The administration is, at a minimum, telling a one-sided story — it’s a bit disingenuous,” Charles Campbell, managing director at MKM Partners, said about Mr. Trump and his team’s taking credit for the rising stock market.

Mr. Campbell said it is “a little early” for companies to see any direct benefits from Mr. Trump’s deregulation efforts.

“…Singapore shall forever be a sovereign democratic and independent nation, founded upon the principles of liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare and happiness of her people in a more just and equal society,” Harry Lee.

Regular readers will know by now that I’m not to fussed about abstract notions (unlike people like Teo Soh Lung and the other ang moh tua kees who join über white horses to pak PAP) about democracy, liberty and justice in S’pore: these are after all juz abstract nouns.

But I care about “welfare and happiness” of S’poreans because S’pore is a wealthy city state that can afford to spend more on S’poreans. It’s the PAP’s failure to spend more of S’poreans’ money on S’poreans that makes me criticise the actions and machinations of the PAP administration, not abstract notions about democracy, liberty and justice. Money talks, BS walks.

The following is being shared widely on FB. Seems Ravi filmed his attack on Ms Chong

Nash AK
1 hr ·
I initially did not want to post anything about this on Facebook but it seems there are people who are determined to twist the facts and cast aspersions on my firm and my colleague, Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss about what happened today morning at my firm. I set out below my personal knowledge of the matter.

At about 10.45 am today, M Ravi and three male thugs appeared at the firm’s door wanting to come in. I informed my staff not to open the door. I spoke to Ravi to ask what he wanted. He said I was being filmed and on FBLive. One of the thugs was indeed holding a camera phone apparently filming me.

Ravi then claimed he is going to sue me and the firm and wanted to serve papers on us. Later, he talked some nonsense including alleging corruption of the firm, AGC, Courts, etc. I told him that he can email me with whatever he needs to convey to us. He demanded I come out and speak to him but I refused. After a short while, he gave up, scolded me in highly colourful language using both English and Tamil vulgarities and left. I then went back into my room.

Within less than a minute, my staff came running to say that Ravi had done something and Jeanette was on the floor in the corridor outside our unit. I immediately went out and saw that indeed, Jeannette was on the floor and all her things were strewn all over the corridor. I saw Ravi standing over her and shouting at her while the three thugs were standing by.

When I walked up to Ravi, he told the thugs to “get him”, referring to me. I spoke to one of them calmly and warned him not to touch me. I assumed he was not stupid enough to assault me in front of another law office, Miranda Law, our neighbours, whose staff were watching the commotion.

When Ravi saw that his thugs did not do anything to me, he got even more agitated and started screaming and shouting incoherently at me, making all sorts of allegations. At one point, he came nose to nose to my face and shouting, clearly expecting an angry reaction from me, so that his three thugs who were surrounding me could do something. I did not react. In between his rants, I told him he should let Jeanette go to the office. I don’t know whether he even heard me. Shortly thereafter, he grabbed what I think was Jeanette’s handbag from the floor and threw it at my face and hit me squarely on the nose. Again, I did not react.

Jeanette then tried to get up and get her things but Ravi tried to stop her and shouted at her, claiming that she was taking his things. I was genuinely afraid he was going to assault her in front me, so I tried to stand between her and Ravi and told him as calmly as I could, to leave.

Ravi continued ranting and raving for another minute or so and finally left. His three thugs were witness to all the happenings and one appeared to be filming everything.

Lawyer and candidate the General Election 2015 and 2011, Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss posted on FB two hours ago

I was just physically assaulted by M Ravi. He was outside my office with 3 huge guys. I was approaching my office when he came towards me with the 3 guys. Then he spoke to me. I did not want to hear him, so I smiled and attempted to walk away, then he pushed me to the floor. I fell down. Then he took my handbag, briefcase and lunch bag and threw them at me. Then he told the 3 men that I had hit him, which I did not touch him AT ALL. Then he took my shoes and threw them at me. I stayed on the floor because I was shocked at his physical attack. Also because he kept ranting and making accusations, all the while kicking my things which have been strewed all over the corridor (my handbag was unzipped when I let it go when I was pushed to the floor). Eventually people who were walking to the toilet or who come out upon hearing his rants, saw me on on the floor and knew that I was being victimised. So they came and surrounded me and told me not to react to him. I wanted to hit back at him too (who wants to be victimised), but I knew that I could not when he was bigger than me and also had 3 huge men with him. So held my cool until M Ravi decided that he had enough (since now there were third parties around me) and he walked away, hurling remarks at me as he went. I am shaken. This happened 10 mins ago in the corridor outside my office.

Remember Old Malacca sultanate PM or Bendahara , Bendahara Sri Maharaja Tun Mutahir (died 1510) was a famous Bendahara of the Malaccan Sultanate. He belongs to Tamil Muslim ancestry. He was the seventh Bendahara, a post equivalent to a prime minister. He was accepted as Malay in Malay country!

What he left out about the Indian Bendahara was that he filled court positions with his relatives, and was executed by the Sultan who was suspicious that he was trying to become sultan, hence giving posts to his relatives.

Actually the Malacca Sultanate, the Golden Age of the Malays, was a pretty multiracial place.

Tun Mahathir , ex PM and numbers of Indian ancestry ministers and MPs from UMNO accepted as members , a party which only Malay can join!

Why we in Singapore make a big fuss about Malay ancestry of Elected President.In fact how many of Malay people are pure Malay!We are Rojak society , and in us flow many ancestry bloodline before our IC indicate the race MALAY!

If Malaysia, Malay country can accept any Indian ancestry Muslim Malay spoken , especially in Penang, as Malay why can’t our country, Singapore.

Thinking about it why didn’t the PAP simply say Nathan also Malay?

After all PAP MP Zainal Sapari says i/c is irrelevant in deciding whether one is a Malay (Malayness issue post). Actually he may have gone further, allegedly claiming that Mandaki was wrong in using i/c card race classification in deciding whether to extend aid. Sadly he sanitisied his FB thread so we can’t be certain.

——————————-

This is especially because Mendaki’s position is that if i/c doesn’t say “Malay” there’ll be no help for the Muslim supplicant, even if the entire kampung swears that said supplicant is really a Malay.

Malay-Muslim self-help group Yayasan Mendaki has a set of criteria for its financial assistance schemes for students administered on behalf of the Government. Among other things, the recipients “must be of Malay descent” as stated in their identity cards. It spells out a list of what it considers to be “Malay descent”, and this includes 22 ethnicities including Acehnese, Javanese, Boyanese, Sumatran, Sundanese and Bugis. Students with “double-barrelled” race are eligible if the first race is listed on the identity cards as Malay, said a Mendaki spokesman. For example, a student who is Malay-Arab would qualify for the schemes but an Arab-Malay student would not, he added.

If he did, was he aware that the Malay minister responsible for Malay affairs heads Mendaki? Now that guy’s i/c says “Malay”. But a classmate of his says that the story in school (Tanjong Katong Technical School) was that his dad chose “Malay” instead “Arab” because of the goodies. But we know school boys can be mean, and tell lies.

The flights from S’pore unlike that from M’sia and PeenoyLand are regular, not ad hoc.

The flights have one primary aim, monitoring the movements of Chinese nuclear subs based in Hainan. They also are intended to show the finger to Chinese claims over the South China Sea.

Three littoral combat ships have also been deployed to Singapore since 2013. Now there are none, but two are going to be based here from next year http://thediplomat.com/2017/06/us-navy-plans-to-deploy-two-littoral-combat-ships-to-singapore-in-2018/

On 4th August, I heard M Ravi, was again in Woodbridge. I checked his FB and there were no postings since 1 August, giving credence to the story. Yesterday lunch time, I checked again and there were still no new postings. This morning (5.00am) there were several new postings.

Western multinationals, spotting a bonanza, are selling billions of dollars of equipment, technology and services to Chinese firms building along it.

America’s General Electric (GE) made sales of $2.3bn in equipment orders from OBOR projects in 2016, almost three times the total for the previous year. John Rice, the firm’s vice-chair, expects the firm to enjoy double-digit growth in revenues along OBOR in coming years. Other firms, such as Caterpillar, Honeywell, and ABB, global engineering giants, DHL, a logistics company, Linde and BASF, two industrial gas and chemicals manufacturers, and Maersk Group, a shipping firm, rattle off lists of OBOR projects. Deutsche Bank has structured eight trade deals around it and has an agreement with the China Development Bank, one of China’s policy lenders, to fund several OBOR schemes.

One of the usual suspects, a S’porean version Xena, the warrior princess, recently wrote

I am sad for Singapore and Singaporeans. A single word about the judiciary in a private facebook entry which drew just 20 likes has attracted the attention of the Attorney-General’s Chamber.

How did my country descend to this depth?

Given that she’s always so unhappy about the S’porean way of life, what else could make Teo Soh Lung unhappy?

Li Shengwu, grandson of Lee Kuan Yew has now attracted the attention of the attorney general’s chambers. I believe the chamber was already watching him when he took side with his father, Lee Hsien Yang over his and his aunt’s dispute with the prime minister.

The attorney general will tell the world that there is no conflict of interest when his chamber decides to look into the private facebook entries of Li Shengwu, but I will not believe that. What business has he to look into a person’s private facebook? Isn’t there more important work than to spy on personal facebooks?”

Am I being overly cynical in thinking that if the AGC did not say the AGC was investigating this White Horse (progency of the First Familee), she’d be KPKBing, “Why no investigate? White Horse isit?”

As it is now, she’s on the same side as über White Mare Lee Wei Ling with her whine

I am surprised that AGC takes such negative reaction to a private post. Is there a government servant whose duty is to follow the Facebook activity of all people related to Hsien Yang and I, including our private musings. Also, what Shengwu posted is a common topic amongst Singaporeans who are well informed. Is this not an example of ” big Brother government”. Perhaps it is a case of “if the hat fits, take it.”

Churchill said a fanatic is “one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”. Fits Ms Teo: life is always seen in the lens of resentment against the PAP administration. An administration that has the support of 60- 70% of voters. True it locked her up without trial but that was a long time ago. Time to move on?

I mean being on the same side as Lee Wei Ling is so, so pathetic. And so is the cause. I mean White Horses (especially über ones) should be held accoutable for their actions, juz like nobodies like Roy or Amos.

I’m glad that the AGC is upholding the laws that Harry made illleral and in sending the message that über White Horses from the line of Lee not exempted.

China may be clamping down on its homegrown deal-makers. But DealBook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin notes that one American company is making a big move in that country: Starbucks.

Last week, the coffee giant bought out its local partner. It’s part of an eye-opening expansion campaign there, where it’s opening 500 stores a year. Starbucks is even planning a 30,000-square-foot emporium that the company’s chairman, Howard Schultz, thinks could have more significance for Chinese consumers than Shanghai Disney.

“When people ask me how much can you really grow in China, I don’t really know what the answer is, but I do believe it’s going to be larger than the U.S.,” Mr. Schultz told Mr. Sorkin.

And not complaining to the govt to take away the freebies because it’s welfarism.

When I saw the following on FB, I tot the above

I am so ENVIOUS of our Otters. They are so fortunate to have regular meals of fresh fish. We must do all we can to protect our heritage. With LOVE to our Otters.

OK, OK the original otters from Bishah, AMK are FTs. But what the heck, they are the kind of New Citizens I welcome. But I can’t help but wonder if their aggressive behaviour towards the Marina (then S’pore River, now Bukit Timah) otters is the result of first settling in PAP areas?

Whatever, I’m sure Kate Spade Tin’s running dogs will feed the Bishan otters better fish than the local otters, if otters move into Tin’s ward. They may even poison the latter so that the former can take control.

Btw, otters are now in Siglap. Yesterday afternoon, I saw a mum and pup alongside Siglap Canal where it intersects East Coast Rd, beside St Patrick’s School. They were sunning themselves, mum belly up, abd wriggling her bottom.

I had my dog with me, so no photos.

But I’m sure the Katong Convent gal taking photos will be posting them on FB soon. When I spoke to a friend, he said he saw them in the sea off Marine Parade and on the beach. Apparently these otters are the Tanah Merah otters.

I’m waiting for the day when otters are spotted in WP territory. Bedok reservoir is in WP area, But maybe otters (local or FT) are smarter than the majority of voters in Aljunied and Hougang?

But really it shows that the running dogs’ Pavlovian response is to screw S’poreans, while making life great for FTs.

And where did they learn that response from? The PAP.

Remember CurryGate? A govt agency told locals to stop cooking curry because it offended FTs. And worse was proud of its action.

But to be fair to the PAP, here’s an example (the only one I can find of the PAP administration discriminating against FTs)

Also seen just outside the event area was Russian student Elijah Zamyatin, who was playing Monopoly with three Singaporean friends when the group was approached by Yahoo Singapore. The 18-year-old, who has lived in Singapore for seven years, said he had been unaware of the new regulations until he read the signs placed around the area.

“I don’t understand why (it is like this). It seems like love is for everyone except foreigners. This event is to spread love, but you ban foreigners,” he said.

(Alt title: “How can S’pore be creative and prosperous when the PAP clings to discredited. outdated theories?”)

But first, this well argued, reasoned piece appeared as a letter to TRE. It also provides the background to the explanation that the “Malay race” is a Western, colonial creation to better subjectate natives. One could argue that the PAP keeps the concept in order to play the British game of “divide and rule”.

It feels like the next Presidential Election is a failure at all levels. The government have given their reasons for reserving this next election for the Malays, following changes to the Constitution to ensure the highest office of the land reflects Singapore’s multiracial society.

While the government sees this as a way to reflect multiracial society, this have backfired on them. Where once Singaporeans don’t really see race as an issue, as this generation accepts Singapore’s diverse races living and working together, this very decision to ensure a Malay representative get the Presidency role seems to have given rise to racism.

Now, we have online netizens questioning in what constitutes of being a Malay. Three person are almost certain to be the candidates for the Presidency Election, one allegedly an Indian Muslim, one is of a Pakistani descent and one cannot even speak Malay properly. Now, everyone is questioning on what the government sees as Malay! The issue with this is that race was once not part of this political process, where people vote according to who they think will do a good job. It just so happened that no Malay candidate would run.

Now they have opened to Malays only. Isn’t this going against their open arms policy?And by having only Malays, isn’t this also a racist thing to do? Now everyone is questioning whether this Malay candidate is Malay enough, not some mixed heritage. Just because they speak Malay, does not mean one is a Malay. LKY spoke impeccable Malay, but he is not a Malay! Furthermore, one candidate cannot even speak Malay properly.

So you see? Government wants to reserve the President for a Malay, cos we have not had one for a long time. But by doing this, you are saying Malays cannot contest on their own merits. Govt must hand hold them, and let Malays challenge the not so Malays, and the winner would be a Malay. What kind of logic is that?

Fadly Yusoff

Well said Fadly Yusoff.

Coming back to blaming the Europeans for the problem where “Indians” and “Pakistanis” can be Malays in an election where only Malays can stand, blame in particular the British and an 18th century German.

In 1824, the British introduced the concept of the “Malay” race into S’pore’s psyche and political governance, when they classified the residents of S’pore into “Chinese”, “Indians”, “Malays” and “Others”.

Raffles’ views must have played a part in this classification even though by 1824 he had retired and was living in England:

The popularisation of Malay as a racial category was in essence a colonial product, the significant role of which played by the Spanish since the 17th century and that of the British since the 18th century in identifying the Archipelago as the Malay world. The view held by Thomas Stamford Raffles for example, had a significant influence on English-speakers, lasting to the present day. He should probably be regarded as the most important voice in projecting the idea of a ‘Malay’ race or nation, not limited to the traditional Raja-Raja Melayu or even their supporters, but embracing a large if unspecified part of the Archipelago.[23]William Marsden, another British “merchant-scientist,” classified the inhabitants of the Archipelago as Malays, based on religion (Islam), language (Malay) and origin.[24]

There is considerable genetic, linguistic, cultural, and social diversity among the many Malay subgroups, mainly due to hundreds of years of immigration and assimilation of various regional ethnicity and tribes within Maritime Southeast Asia.

Given that a fifth of marriages are between people of different “races”, surely we should be moving away from thinking in terms of “race”? And then there’s this aspiration:

We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united people, regardless of race, language or religion, to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality, so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation.

But then maybe the PAP is using the issue of race to play a modern day version of the British game of “divide and rule” the natives?

What do u think?

Whatever, how can S’pore be creative, let alone progress if the ruling party in a defacto one-party state refuses to change its mind on policies that no longer work or never worked in the first place?

Take the economy where the PAP

— continues to see welfare** as a bad thing except when it needs to buy votes, and

Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back

*And nowadays called Maritime Southeast Asia (the maritime region of Southeast Asia as opposed to mainland Southeast Asia and comprises what is now Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and Timor Leste. An alternate term for the region is “the Indonesian Archpielgo and the Malay Peninsula”.

**To be fair to the PAP, “A shift to a welfare state is a daunting challenge that cannot be realised without raising taxes comprehensively,” says a S Korean economist taking of the Korean govt’s plans. But as Chris K and Yeoh Lam Keong keep pointing out, there’s a lot more that can be done within the present framework.

For yrs, Temasek looked good because the bank was minting money regularly with double-digit growth in revenues and profits: even during the banking crisis that hurt Temasek’s other ang mohbanking investments (Barclays and Merrill Lynch). But then two yrs ago, it suffered heavy losses on some of its vast loans to risky Asian companies in Indonesia and India.

Standard Chartered PLC said it isn’t ready to start paying dividends again but will reconsider it at the end of the year.

The Asia-focused bank’s shares fell 4% after it said it still has a long way to go to improve returns, despite improvements in underlying profits.

First-half revenue rose to $7.2 billion from $6.8 billion a year earlier. Revenue in the second quarter met analysts’ expectations, at $3.6 billion. Net profit for the first half climbed to $971 million from $465 million a year earlier.

Yesterday, I promised to explain why this is unfair to Hali and her mum and the Malay community.

(Terry Lim’s photos)

The cybernut who did the above, conveniently left out the inconvenient fact that none of the three “Indian” PAPpies had the misfortune of their “Indian” father dying when they were young children.

Halimah had the misfortune (OK, OK, it later turned out to be a winning lottery ticket) of her Indian-Muslim dad dying when she was eight. It was her widowed Malay mum that then brought Halimah (and her siblings) up with the support of her Malay relatives and the wider Malay community.

Halimah was not brought up in the Indian-Muslim community as an Indian-Muslim; but among the Malays as a Malay. No racists, the Malays: if a widowed Malay mother in a mixed race marriage wants to bring up her children as Malays, they support her. Truly tolerant, truly S’poreans. Really Mendaki should reflect this tolerant attitude: not that only i/c matters (See above link) as to who is a Malay.

And as I’ve written before, when she was NUS Law school, she was tot of as a Malay. Even then she wore a tudung, which then wasn’t hip. Btw, an Indian who knows the other female PAPpy Indian says she only started wearing saris when she became a junior minister.

A senior lawyer posted on FB that “the test in the Presidential Elections Act is not a race test, it’s a community acceptance test”. He’s right but the PM framed the need and importance of a Malay president in racial terms: “multi-racialism” to be precise.

So

S’poreans are right to ask to be talking about the issue because the next presidency is reserved for a Malay. And one of the candidates is “Pakistani” (i/c says so leh) and the other while his i/c says “Malay” has Malays complaining that he’s really Indian because he can’t speak proper Malay.

By playing the “race” card albeit in the name of “multi-racialism”, the PM created a rod for his back and that of the PAP.

So let us continue to “Pak PM, Pak PAP” on the unreality of Muslim-Indians becoming Malays when the presidency is reserved for a Malay. Good clean fun. And best of all, the PAPpies started the conversation, not us.

HSBC’s tale also shows what can happen when a big international bank stops shooting itself in the foot and avoids scandal. The cleanup of HSBC – forced by past scandals, notably the £1.2bn fine in the US for money-laundering offences plus tax avoidance scams in Switzerland – is finally delivering for shareholders.

The London-based bank has been overhauling its operations, shedding tens of thousands of jobs, selling underperforming businesses and shrinking its global investment banking business. And as its prospects have improved, it has announced $5.5 billion in share repurchases since the second half of last year.

Profit was up to $3.9 billion in the second quarter, from $2.5 billion the year before.

The bank is also headed toward a change of leadership. Mark Tucker, the chief executive of AIA, will replace Douglas Flint as chairman in October. Mr. Tucker will have to find a chief executive to replace Stuart Gulliver, the chief executive, who plans to retire.

Usually reliable sources say that the PAP is trying very hard to persuade Abdullah bin Tarmugi to stand as president. He’s reluctant because despite being only in his early 70s, he has heart problems. This is PAP’s Plan B.

Halimah (Plan A but in abeyance) will now only stand if Tamugi can’t be persuaded to do NS. So she’s not really BSing that she hasn’t made up her mind. The PAP hasn’t decided to go ahead with her coronation because the issue of who is a Malay is a major topic of discussion among the 60- 70% that regularly vote for the PAP. That the 30% are talking about it too is irrelevant.

S’poreans are right to ask to be talking about the issue because the next presidency is reserved for a Malay. And one of the candidates is “Pakistani” (i/c says so) and the other while his i/c says “Malay” has Malays complaining that he’s really Indian because he can’t speak proper Malay.

The view among S’poreans of all races that what is on one’s i/c is a lot of bull* when it comes to whether someone is a Malay is becoming a major problem for the PAP.

This is especially because Mendaki’s position is that if i/c doesn’t say “Malay” there’ll be no help for the Muslim supplicant, even if the entire kampung swears that said supplicant is really a Malay.

Malay-Muslim self-help group Yayasan Mendaki has a set of criteria for its financial assistance schemes for students administered on behalf of the Government. Among other things, the recipients “must be of Malay descent” as stated in their identity cards. It spells out a list of what it considers to be “Malay descent”, and this includes 22 ethnicities including Acehnese, Javanese, Boyanese, Sumatran, Sundanese and Bugis. Students with “double-barrelled” race are eligible if the first race is listed on the identity cards as Malay, said a Mendaki spokesman. For example, a student who is Malay-Arab would qualify for the schemes but an Arab-Malay student would not, he added.

(CNA)

Tamugi’s i/c says “Malay” and so that fact alone will kick into the long grass for the next 30 years the lethal bomb that what the i/c says is irrelevant in deciding who is a Malay.

Better still he’s from RI and played rugby for RI at scrum half.

Even better still, his mum was Chinese and his wife is Chinese. So while he may be the token Malay president that the PAP wants to hoist on us, he can be the second multi-racial president, after Sheares.

*Even PAP MP Zainal Sapari says i/c is irrelevant in deciding whether one is a Malay. He’s not expected to stand at next GE.